First, there was Kinect. You’ve probably heard of that one. Next, it was KinectFusion, which uses live data from Kinect for Windows to create high-quality, 3-D models of a room and its contents. KinectFusion made a splash in 2011 during the 38th International Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques (SIGGRAPH).

Now, it’s time for KinÊtre, the latest Microsoft Research project that uses a Kinect depth camera to provide novel functionality: Among other animations, it can make chairs dance.

No, your eyes didn’t deceive: dancing chairs. If that sounds like fun, you’ve come to the right place.

KinÊtre, which can animate all sorts of inanimate objects, will be presented as a talk by Jiawen Chen during SIGGRAPH 2012, being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center from Aug. 5 to 9.

On Nov. 26, 2011, the Mars rover Curiosity was launched from Cape Canaveral, a trip that will have taken more than eight months before Curiosity lands on the surface of the Red Planet.

With excitement peaking in the days before the landing, Microsoft and NASA are using the event as an opportunity to enable youngsters to learn computational skills and explore the Martian terrain by using Kodu: Mars Edition.

Developed in cooperation with NASA’s Mars Public Engagement Program, led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Microsoft Research’s FUSE Labs, Kodu: Mars Edition lets children create games for the PC or Xbox using a simple, visual programming language. The aim of the collaboration is to create compelling learning experiences that develop students’ competency in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), along with 21st-century skills.

A recent study by the Pew Research Center indicates that 80 percent of adults in the United States have searched for medical information online. Such a figure underscores the fundamental importance that humans place on their health and wellbeing—and their reliance on the web for health information.

Microsoft researchers, however, have studied challenges with the use of the web for performing diagnosis and have pursued an understanding about why searches about common symptoms can escalate quickly into users focusing their attention on rare, serious conditions.

It’s called cyberchondria—making the leap from prosaic symptoms that could be explained in a multitude of ways to potential ailments more worrisome or debilitating.

Remember that time, a decade or so ago, when spam was the scourge of the Internet, when the sheer volume of junk email threatened to engulf legitimate correspondence and short-circuit the promise of the digital revolution?

Those concerns are a bit distant these days. Spam is no longer Public Enemy No. 1 among the digerati. People have devised ways to combat it effectively. Our attentions have shifted to other, more recent problems—such as click-spam.

Click-spam is defined as fraudulent or invalid clicks on online ads where the user has no actual interest in the advertiser’s site, but don’t be misled into thinking this is merely some sort of Internet mischief. Click-spam has the potential to see millions of dollars of ad revenue misappropriated by nefarious means.